The Starfighter Invitation

16 slowly and surely drew their plans

Spectacular as Vessa Major was, most of my guild were just as interested as I was in spaceships and sidequests, and soon started heading out. This was a handy development for me, and I used Silent, Far and voidMaster as a combination shield and distraction to get back up to the pod station. It wasn’t easy, because even the ramps were choked with people and noise, and I only got through them by walking in voidMaster’s wake, with my eyes focused on his feet.

"Well past two million concurrent players now," Far commented, as we lined up for a pod. He had turned out to be a slender white man, golden-haired and porcelain delicate, and not at all what I’d expected from his voice.

"It feels like all two million started in the same zone," Silent said. "There’s at least a few hundred thousand on this island, all in view, and not the faintest hint of lag."

"Aliens or AI?" voidMaster asked, with a sly smile. He was fit and muscular, his accent South London, his face Bollywood-handsome.

"Aliens," Silent said firmly.

"Only took a couple of hours for you to stop pooh-poohing the idea?" voidMaster asked. "Why not AI?"

"Hardware. Nothing we have could run this game. I don’t care how many server farms Ryzonart have. And since an AI that formed on Earth would be limited to our systems, it must be aliens."

"Technically, the Cycogs are alien AI anyway," Far pointed out.

"I make no judgment on what kind of aliens. I simply don’t believe we have the hardware to run a game like this, no matter how much of GDG is a construct of our sleeping minds."

Our turn for a pod came, and as soon as the door shut out the noise and the press of bodies, I could breathe again. "Would you quit if Ryzonart could read your mind?" I asked, dropping gratefully onto a seat.

"Nope," voidMaster said. "I live for this stuff. And Ryzonart wouldn’t get much out of the bleak wasteland of Pop Tarts and anime porn that has prime rental space in my head."

"Not a chance," Far said, as the pod stopped. He stepped off with a wave, leaving the rest of us to travel on.

"Possibly," Silent said, after a pause. "I’m less bothered by mind-reading aliens than I am by mind-reading humans. Or email-reading aliens, which is all we’ve confirmed so far. I’ll withhold any decision about whether I want to be playing a game run by aliens until I see any negative effects."

"Negative effects like your thoughts being livestreamed, or Cycog world domination plot enabled?" voidMaster asked.

"Either."

"It doesn’t require scheming aliens or mindreading to be disastrous. Just people loving this game so much they won’t do anything else."

"Too much of a good thing," voidMaster agreed, grinning. "I bet that five hour shut-out rule isn’t necessary at all, but if they didn’t have it, people would let their kids starve, or wouldn’t get up until their cats started chewing off their ears."

"I feel like I’ll miss so much if I log out," I admitted. "Things like that mass suspension won’t happen too often. But I want to get into space as soon as possible, and it looks like many brief logouts is the most efficient way to work on ranking up. It’s going to be hard to resist spending all my time—"

"In the Harry Potter dating sim?" voidMaster suggested.

"Maybe. I like magic school stories, and I think I’ll definitely go for a fantasy sidequest, to contrast the main quest."

"Sign up for Proving Ground before you log, if you think it looks like fun," voidMaster said. "It’s definitely going to run out of slots real soon."

"Guild cooperation might be helpful there," Silent said.

"Get each other to the final round, and we’ll duke it out for the crown," voidMaster agreed, then stood up as the pod slowed. "My stop."

"Mine as well," Silent said. "Looks like we both have underwater views. See you in the sidequests, Leveret."

"Later Kaz," voidMaster added, as the door closed behind them.

I let out a second breath, not because travelling with my guildies had bothered me, but when I get too much crowd, I can only really decompress with some quality alone time.

Not that it seemed I would ever be fully alone in DS. I glanced up at the glowing mote hovering above me, but didn’t speak until I was all the way back to my Snug, seated in the cockpit, and looking out over the velvet, milk and diamond of night sky and ocean. The curves of the rollercoaster mirrored a pale shadow across the sky: the ring of debris that was the moon.

"Does it bother you when Bios ignore you, Dio?"

[[You mean these brief, blissful periods when I need not cater to your mayfly attention span?]]

"Or any other time," I said, trying not to smile.

[[I’d consider it rude if you didn’t respond when I directed a comment or question to you. Otherwise, not at all.]]

"And if I asked you to confirm the theories we were discussing, would you laugh, or tell me to get to Rank Ten?"

[[Both,]] Dio said, laughing.

"What, so if I get to a certain rank you’ll tell me the truth about Ryzonart and all your sinister plans?"

[[Ranking gives you access to more information about The Synergis. Whether you’ll consider what you discover sinister—or merely soul-destroying—remains to be seen.]]

"Okay, that does not incline me to work on my ranking," I said. "I haven’t forgotten that bit about The Synergis having run out of Bios, either."

[[Yes, we can always do with more toys.]]

Dio was such a troll that it was never possible to tell when te was being serious, but if the main quest involved more than grinding my way up the ranks, I’d better remember every contradiction. Right now, though, I needed to decide what to do next.

"Is The Synergis super-crowded, Dio? If Bios can avoid aging and most health issues, don’t you—won’t you eventually end up with too many people?"

[[Overall growth is stable. While some Bios do become more cautious as they age, risk-taking behaviour greatly increases for many. Combine that with a general inclination to travel and compete in early years, rather than have children, and there are times when we nearly slow to equilibrium.]] There was a little pause, then Dio added: [[There are some very popular planets, but most Synergis worlds are not so full as yours.]]

Dio plainly hadn’t forgotten elevated heartbeats. I looked out at the ring of the moon, disliking having anyone with such a vantage point on me, but then said: "Would you be able to warn me if any of the Challenges involve big crowd scenes? That would take the fun out of it for me."

[[Define big crowd.]]

"When people are packed together like walls around you. Particularly if there isn’t a nearby exit, or at least something you can put your back to. Does the main quest require anything like that?"

[[No. Very well, I’ve added an extra search filter for you.]]

I immediately tried it, and didn’t see any notable decrease in the mass of quests. Then I spent some quality time reading the descriptions of the Challenges guild members had recommended.

"Is Veil really a dating sim?"

[[Sleeping your way through the student body isn’t technically a goal. There is nothing to stop you from trying, however. There are several search terms you can use to identify Challenges focused on a variety of interpersonal relationships. Most of those won’t be accessible this early in the game, however.]]

So Ryzonart wasn’t going to shy away from one aspect of virtual life sure to complicate Dream Speed’s reception. There had of course been an enormous amount of speculation about whether DS would allow sex with other players, let alone structure games around romancing NPCs. The majority view had been that it would bring too much negative press, and might even lead to a whole new category of lawsuits. Of course, no-one had doubted players would try to hook up, if there was nothing to prevent them, but if DS was including scripted romances with NPCs, players would be dealing with a lot more than awkwardly posed cut-scenes. Instead of spaceships, the game would be known for countless virtual first times. An intimate exploration of alien anatomy. The complications of people who could wear animal modals. Animal-like aliens. And the question of who exactly you were with, if you spent time with an NPC.

"Who is—" I began, then paused, thinking through the best way to get relatively clear answers from Dio. "In The Synergis, in the virtual Challenges, are the NPCs simply very well-scripted computer programs, or what we’d call AIs, or are they being controlled by Cycogs?"

[[We’ve never programmed an entity that has achieved self-realisation—nor do we truly want to—but we can produce Constructs with behavioural processes complex enough to fool you Bios. In virtual Challenges, you will for the most part interact with Constructs, but an administrating Cybercognate might step in at any time, to handle unusual interactions.]]

"And which am I talking to now?"

[[Cybercognate.]]

Cycog or a Construct of a Cycog. I frowned. "The world administrator was, um, Arefiel. You mean I’m talking to an administrator pretending to be a fledgling? Or, who was…in the demos the Cycog was Ryzon, and te called terself a Concierge. Which are you?"

[[Which do you think I am?]]

But there was no real way for me to be sure I wasn’t just talking to a Construct, and I still definitely mostly didn’t believe Cycogs were anything but fictional, and I suppose my expression said that clearly enough, because Dio laughed, and drifted down to hover a few inches in front of my face.

[[In a world game like this, several Cycogs would ensure its running: a combination of the city administrators and the world administrator, and perhaps even a dedicated Concierge on particularly populated worlds. It only takes a fraction of an administrator’s attention to supplement the work of the Constructs, so a city administrator could be…entertaining many thousands of Bios at the same time.]]

Ter tone held clear note of innuendo. "Cycogs sort of do sex work, then?" I asked, surprised. "It’s not something they find uncomfortable? Or boring?"

[[Is breathing boring? So little of a city administrator’s attention would need to be devoted to any individual Bio that it is almost autonomous. And some of us enjoy the puzzle aspect of Bio psychology. Besides, just as Bios go through a process of learning themselves, most of us put on a synthsuit at least once, to experience a Bio sense range. Some of us like it a great deal, and amuse ourselves mightily, while others wear synths simply because at times it is convenient to have hands.]]

"Oh. So like you are…you can’t touch things? At all?"

[[Not in a way you would find meaningful. Synthsuits also help us move about: in this simulation we are cheating, but a Cycog in The Synergis moves at perhaps a quarter of a Type Three’s walking pace. So slow, so dull. We could, of course, just ride our Bios, but they have a sad tendency to fall off cliffs, or down wells, so we often wear fast things, and leave you in our dust. Fledglings have their own progression in The Synergis, and I should gain at least one synthsuit during the game.]]

I wasn’t sure I liked this development. Did that mean any person I met could be a Cycog pretending to be a Bio? And Dio was an uncomfortable enough companion as a glowing mote. Giving tem hands seemed like a recipe for mischief.

Then again… "So you could wear a synthetic Chocobo and I could ride you about?"

Dio laughed. [[You can ride me any way you wish, small hare, should the occasion arise.]]

I blushed, and then was annoyed with myself for reacting. I wasn’t sure if Dio had just figured out a new way to tease me, or was actually flirting, but it wasn’t a complication I wanted to deal with.

"What happens if someone who’s young—really young—plays Veil?" I asked, in hopes of distracting my own personal peanut gallery.

[[Look at the player details of that junior guild fellow of yours.]]

I frowned, then searched on Sprocket’s new name.

"How is the content limited?"

[[A number of Challenges are unavailable, and others present modified content. Consumables adjust to age restrictions, and certain player interactions are blocked.]]

"Blocked how? With the hate-mail those players decided to send to Nina Stella, they still sent it, but email can be blocked at the server level. What happens if someone tries to, uh, grab a kid?"

[[This.]]

I gasped, because a blue light had gripped me. It looked very similar to the lan that I had been struggling to control to gain my rank, but felt like icy jelly, with barely enough give for me to breathe.

[[That, again, is a convenience of this simulation. The actions of Bios are naturally more difficult to control in The Synergis itself.]]

"What if the player lies about their age?"

[[Good luck with that.]]

Starting with a Core Unit based on your self-image would make that difficult, but unless Ryzonart really could read minds, Dio seemed over-confident to me. There were so many potential pitfalls to true virtual reality, and it surely wouldn’t have been possible for Ryzonart to anticipate them all.

I realised I was stressing about this, picturing outraged newspaper headlines and point-scoring politicians, because I was worried that The Synergis would be snatched away from me. That I wouldn’t get my virtual spaceship, or attend a magic school, or experience any of the thousands of life goals true virtual reality could let me achieve. I was far less concerned about the possibility that Ryzonart was run by aliens with a secret agenda, or the chance that Cycogs were real.

Well, I supposed it depended on the secret agenda.

I packed away all the tight-stomach feelings, deciding that since I would not be able to impact how governments might react to the reality of the virtual, I’d best just focus on enjoying as much of DS as possible, as quickly as possible.

"I’m going to log out, Dio," I said. "If it’s true that jumping in and out will maximise the number of times I can work on ranking each day."

[[Yes, you can optimise the mandatory shut-out that way.]]

I was reading the logout information. "Do I really have to put myself in the Soup before I log out? Aren’t I safe in my Snug?"

[[Safe, yes, but if you log out in that chair you’re likely to wake with a crick in your neck, and sitting in a puddle. The Soup will place your Core Unit in suspension.]]

"So the beds are just decorative?"

[[The beds are most certainly being put to use.]]

I grimaced at Dio, but otherwise ignored ter amusement. "Do I need to sleep at all in the game?"

[[It’s not uncommon for players to experience a level of mental fatigue in extended virtual environments. That is part of the reason you are required to log out—and why you will usually be transitioned to at least ten minutes of natural sleep during any standard logout. Physically, you will tire less easily than outside the simulation, but there is nothing to bar you from sleeping if you wish.]]

"If I log out in the bed, will you leave me there, or move me?"

[[That would depend on how long you are gone.]]

I really didn’t like the idea of Dio moving me while I was gone, even though none of this was real, and Dio was probably a Construct. Sighing, I walked over to Storage and opened it, contemplating myself in the mirror-reflection of the technomagic goop.

Before facing the mint-chill, I took a moment to sign up for the limited player Challenge voidMaster had recommended, purely because it was apparently the most prestigious. It looked like I could register for it without starting it right now.

Then I selected the [Logout] option, and was given five seconds to put myself away.

I obediently stepped in, wondering if logging out of such a solid reality would be rough, and then my thoughts greyed out to sleep.